Amazon’s Alexa is coming to headphones, speakers and fitness trackers

Alexa everywhere

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Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa will soon be coming to a wide range of wearable and portable products including headphones, speakers and fitness trackers.

That’s because support for the Alexa wake word is being brought to a selection of Qualcomm’s Bluetooth SoCs (system-on-chips), which will find their way into a variety of products over the next couple of years.

This will allow users of devices featuring these Bluetooth chips to use the “Alexa” phrase to wake the assistant and utilise the information service it delivers.

Update for Alexa

You’ll need to have the Alexa app downloaded on your phone, so you’ll need to make sure your handset is close by, but devices will support the ‘barge-in’ feature which allows music playback to be interrupted when the Alexa trigger is said.

For products that already use Qualcomm’s CSR8670 and CSR8675 Bluetooth Audio SoCs, the Alexa wake word support can also be made available with a software update, which means we won’t have to wait for new devices to enter the market before taking advantage of this feature.

It’s currently not clear which devices will receive the update, or when new products offering the service will enter the market.